The Star in the West

THE VIRGIN 103 of their foolish honeymoon has tarnished . His un easiness is soon dispelled : “ Come, in this sweet abandonment of self " -whispers the singing voice of Venus , and so following he sings : Come , love, and kiss my shoulders ! Sleepy lies The tinted bosom whence its fire flies , The breathing life of thee , and swoons , and sighs , And dies ! None but the dead can know the worth of love ! . Come , love , thy lips , curved hollow as the moon's ! Bring me thy kisses , for the seawind tunes , The song that soars , and reads the starry runes , And swoons ! None but the dead can tune the lyre of love ! 1 Such are two out of these six superb lyrical verses . Tannhäuser sleeps . “ None but the dead can know the worth of love ! ” None but the dead , dead to all else . To love is to die and be born again in another world , to slough the skin of the terrene and be robed in all the supernal glory of the celestial . Love changes as Death , it effaces the past , it brightens the future , beautifies as the hand of some mystic artist , all misery , all sorrow , all woe , overwhelming , illimitable . Now we see the horrid form of his lower self , which he once strove to cast off , bending over him ; the Venus of his body rises lecherous over the pure Isis of his soul , the carnal lusting over the Spiritual , as Iago slavered over Desdemona . Come ! ye my serpents , warp his body round With your entangling leprosy ! And me , Let me assume the belovéd limber shape , The crested head , the jewelled eyes of death , i Tannhäuser , vol . i, p . 234 .